within her.

And then all of them tearing at her--she must do this--she must promise
that! If they would only let her alone. She did not want to marry Eitel.
She got tired of him after half-an-hour. She only really liked him when
he was talking about the wars, and Louis--what a nuisance Be was
becoming! She began to hate the innocent Princess, who for Julian's sake
was doing everything for her, and she even grew silent with poor Miss
Aline, shutting herself up more and more within herself. Oh, she was
sick of everything. Was ever a girl so unhappy?

For which causes and reasons, seemingly quite insufficient to any one
but Patsy, she was escaping every day to plot black treason with Kennedy
McClure, whenever that worthy old gentleman was not either at Barnet
Fair or Smithfield Market, the only two places in London which had any
interest for him.

And of course, at this critical moment, there arrived the cataclysmic
letter from Stair.

"The Bothy was attacked and surrounded last night. We can hold out
for at least a week!

"STAIR."

Then everything grew dazed about her--Hanover Lodge and the Princess,
the empty phantasmagoria of courts, balls and routs, the disputes and
reconciliations of royal Dukes, Louis and his half-cured amours with the
Arlington. What did all these things matter? Perhaps at that very moment
the Bothy had been taken by storm, and Patsy's quick mind saw Stair and
her Uncle Julian lying dead out on the face of the moor, the soldiers
who had done the work having no time for even a peat-hag burial.

But Kennedy McClure was a strong tower. If he were affected by the
message he certainly did not show it.

"Hoots, lass," he said, patting her shoulder, "greetin' does no good.
Come wi' me the morn in the _Good Intent_. That will be three tides
before her regular sailing date, but I ken Captain Penman. He is under
some obligations to me, and the _Good Intent_--weel, she's maistly my
ain. But though ye canna speak to the Princess, ye had better tell Miss
Aline. Being Gallowa-born and Gallowa-bred, she will understand and
speak for ye to the Princess."

Patsy promised, though reluctantly, to do what was necessary in Miss
Aline's case. It was monstrous and hateful to her that she should need
to go back to Hanover Lodge at all. But she recognized that Kennedy
McClure was likely to be right, and as she was only anticipating by a
few weeks what she meant to do ever since she had begun to t